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Talk:King Darkstalker/@comment-47.142.164.51-20180124022938
Recently I made a post about Darkstalker's size in a thread where someone was asking just how big he actually was (you can find the thread here: http://wingsoffire.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:224967). I thought I'd copy and paste it here so more people could see it. I have edited a few things in the original post to clarify things, mostly adding a thing or two in parentheses and adding the word "tall" after "x'' feet" to specify I am talking about height, and not any other measurement. The changes I've made are in brackets. So, here you have it (I warn you, it is pretty long): "Darkstalker, eh? I've thought a LOT about the scaling of dragons in this series. This'll be interesting. To start off, on Page Seven of ''Talons of Power ''(hardcover), we have this passage to go off of for Darkstalker's size: "Darkstalker looked down at the ground, held out his talons, and flicked his massive tail, knocking a shower of boulders down the slope. He wasn't really as big as the entire mountain, although it had seemed that way to Turtle at first. But he was at least three times as big as the biggest full-grown dragons Turtle had ever seen." For reference, let's look at Smolder in the drawing of him at the end of his letter Vermillion in the back of ''Winter Turning. Almost all people that I've seen who have done pixel measurements estimate that he is about eighteen feet tall, which seems about right when you see him next to "Flower" (her name is in parentheses because Tui has confirmed that her name is Rose). Smolder has never been described, to my knowledge, as a particularly large dragon; let's say he's average-sized for his age (according to his Wiki page, he is at least thirty-two years old). Therefore, we can rule out that Darkstalker is NOT eighteen feet tall. Now, Morrowseer, on the other hand, has ''been described as being rather big. I wouldn't go off of his portrayal in the graphic novel, or any other characters' for that matter, for the descriptions in the actual book don't all match with what the graphic novel shows (for example, Clay makes a remark about Burn's size in ''The Dragonet Prophecy ''on Page One hundred ninety-five (paperback) in this passage: "'Why don't you kill them?' Burn asked. She was much bigger than Scarlet; her head scraped the top of the tunnel, and her talons were twice the size of Clay's," while in the graphic novel Burn is shorter than Scarlet). In ''The Dragonet Prophecy on Page Thirty-four (paperback), this is Clay's initial impression of Morrowseer: "Morrowseer was even bigger than Kestrel, and five times more terrifying. He spread his jagged, batlike wings and peered down at the dragonets lined up in front of him. He had silver scales like stars on the underside of his wings, like Starflight did, but on him they seemed to glitter from a great distance and cast a cold glow." This suggests that Kestrel is fairly larger than Clay and the other dragonets (as has been mentioned in previous chapters), which she isn't in the graphic novel, being just about the same size as them (along with the other guardians, for that matter). Morrowseer was never said to be freakishly big; just larger than Kestrel. Not vastly larger than Kestrel, like he is in the graphic novel. Anyway, Turtle has never seen Morrowseer, but a dragon roughly of Morrowseer's size might be the largest dragon he has seen. Okay, so going off of the fact that Tui has confirmed that all of the tribes are about the same size at each life stage, and that Kestrel is at least twenty years old as of her death (as mentioned on her Wiki page), we can assume that Kestrel is slightly smaller than Smolder; maybe fifteen feet tall (dragons age slower the older they get, so it's a possibility with a twelve-year age gap--when you subtract twenty minimum age) from thirty-two minimum age), that is--between Kestrel and Smolder). In the first book on Page Eighty-nine (paperback), this is what is said about Clay's height: "A short, pale creature stumbled into the moonlit clearing in front of them. The top of its furry head was barely as high as Clay's shoulder." Let's assume that the "scavenger" was an adult and about five and one-half feet tall, about the average height of an adult human male. Looking at the way MudWings stand in the NightWing guide to the Pyrrhian dragons, their shoulders are half of their height (at the top of their heads) when standing with their necks stretched comfortably; therefore, we should add another five and one-half feet to get Clay's height at the top of his head. This leaves us with an eleven-foot-tall (at the top of his head) six-year-old Clay. I just made this revelation on the spot while writing this; that is... taller than I originally thought him to be. Worth noting is that Clay has aged around a year since then as of where the series last left off, so he's probably grown a little bigger in that time. probably around twelve feet tall now at seven years old. Anyway, if Kestrel is around fifteen feet tall, and Morrowseer is "even bigger than Kestrel," but not too ''much bigger, otherwise that would've been noted, and is probably bigger than Smolder, we can probably say he is around twenty to twenty-two feet tall. I'm not saying that is definitely the most likely case; I've done no mass or height calculations using equations or anything of the sort this entire time. The only math I've done, really, is subtract Kestrel's minimum age from Smolder's minimum age, and add five and one-half and five and one-half to get eleven. I'm going almost purely based on what I think is a reasonable size for these dragons based on the descriptions given. For example, I wasn't going to say Morrowseer is more than seven feet taller than Kestrel; even ''that seems like too much. I'll still use it as my example, though. At any rate, we can (finally) get back to what I was originally commenting about: Darkstalker. If Turtle describes Darkstalker as "at least three times as big as the biggest full-grown dragons" he had seen, and a dragon perhaps around twenty-two feet tall is the biggest full-grown dragon he has seen, that would mean Darkstalker is around... sixty-six feet tall. Hmm. That's big. WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR DARKNESS OF DRAGONS. Hey, now that we're in this deep, why not talk about Qibli thinking Darkstalker would tire of carrying him in Chapter Twenty-eight? Qibli is five in Darkness of Dragons, so he should be slightly smaller than the Dragonets of Destiny were in the first book when they were six. Dragons age fastest in the first seven years of their life, so Qibli might be about a foot or two shorter than Clay (hey, if Clay is eleven feet tall at six years old, and dragons age fastest up to their seventh year, it is entirely possible for them to grow at least a foot per year up until then). So... Qibli is possibly nine to ten feet tall at the top of his head at five years old. Darkstalker, if I did my math correctly (which I might not have), is around sixty-six feet tall at two thousand seven years old physically mentally; he's still seven years old in that department). While it might seem like it wouldn't be difficult at all for a sixty-six-foot-tall dragon to comfortably carry a nine- to ten-foot-tall dragon, you'd have to take into account something that has never been properly explored in the series: the dragons' weight. As much as I'd love to go into scientific detail about how much the dragons would have to weigh in order to be able to fly, it really is up to Tui. She's never mentioned anything about their weights, except for a few scenes where a dragon lands on another dragon and the dragon holding the other dragon's weight notes how heavy the dragon on them is. I'd rather work to find a solution for them being able to fly with a confirmed weight than assume how much they weigh based on only the laws of aerodynamics and height measurements. I mean, we don't know if Tui imagines the dragons as the ton-weighing beasts they're often depicted as, or whether she imagines them as being lighter, more aerodynamic creatures. Another thing to note about aerodynamics with these dragons: Their wings, no matter how much they weigh (given that their weight makes sense for their size, that is), are too small in all of their official art for them to fly. Believe me: I'm by no means an expert on bird, bat, or theoretical animal flight. But I have read quite a bit about the requirements for a dragon capable of flight, and it really does depend on the weight. And if the dragons' sizes are any indication of their weights, then their wings should be a lot bigger. (Just look at Turtle's! In real life, they'd be vestigial or ornamental, at best, perhaps evolving into larger wings.) Again: Their approximate weights are necessary in order to judge how big their wings should be, as well as whether Qibli would be a burden to carry for Darkstalker after a while. Back to that for a moment, it could've been Qibli being hopeful in a... rather harrowing situation, as many people would be. Who ''wouldn't ''hope the person carrying them to an unknown place would grow tired soon enough, giving them a chance to escape? Tui might not have thought of the technicalities of that short thought, perhaps writing it in to add suspense. As in: "Oh no! Qibli has been kidnapped (dragonet-napped?)! Will he escape? Oh, he's hoping Darkstalker grows tired! He's displaying helplessness; this just makes me more sympathetic towards him!" It's certainly feasible. All right, I think I'm done. Finally. I just spent about two hours writing this spontaneously, grabbing books off of my shelf as I went. I didn't intend for this to be so long; I apologize for that. Either way, I'm glad I found this thread. I learned a fair amount from writing this on the spot. I hope at least someone finds this helpful. If I made any mistakes, please point them out. It'd be appreciated and would help me and others understand this topic further." Okay, that's all of it. To add on to that last bit, though, I'd say Darkstalker, being around sixty-six feet tall (if I did my math correctly), would weigh at least a ton, if not more. Even if you apply as many aerodynamic traits (hollow bones, extremely large wings, etc.) to him as his and the NightWing tribe's overall design allow (if you want to stick as close to the original designs as possible, that is), he'd still weigh a lot. By the way, I wrote, "Therefore, we can rule out that Darkstalker is NOT eighteen feet tall," because someone on that thread said he was eighteen feet tall. Anyway, I hope this helped at least some people. As I said in the original post, let me know if I made any mistakes. (I might've messed up with Morrowseer's height, because I didn't bother to look through the rest of the first four books to find other descriptions of him that might say he is particularly large.) I, and probably many others, would like to know as much about these dragons as possible. Thank you.